August socks? February socks?

I don't know what to call them. Since I started the #12socks project back in July, I have only completed one pair of socks (yet started five pairs). I was totally uninterested in knitting socks throughout the fall, in favor of other things that appealed to me. Well, as of Saturday, I finished three large-ish knitting projects in one fell swoop, freeing up much knitting time to get back into socks. I *must* get back into socks because

1) I want more socks!
2) Cookie A is coming to lead a sock retreat in Tofino in April
3) I'm way behind on this 12 Socks challenge
4) I have lots of sock yarn I want to bust through
5) I received Sock Innovation for Christmas, rounding out my Cookie A pattern book collection (2). 

My plan of attack is to knit seven single socks in advance of the retreat, which is now less than seven weeks away. Seven different Cookie A socks, seven different yarns. I'll offer up all these socks for display at the yarn shop so people can see what Cookie A designs are like and what the yarn looks like knit up! I'll knit their partners after the retreat and have seven new pairs of socks in the house just in time for summer flip-flop wearing weather. I'm rambling... on to the main feature.

This is a pair of toe-up plain vanilla socks out of Austermann Step. It has aloe and jojoba in the yarn for extra added softness. My husband has narrow heels, so the short row heel was the perfect thing. The socks I have knit for him in the past have been on the roomy side, so I'm getting closer to getting it right (I only started doing socks a year ago).

The self-striping of this yarn lined itself up just right, they are symmetrically balanced!